I became an interloper of sorts as I joined with the Honey Badger, Rock Sprite Kitty and their friends as they hiked the trails along the Big Ivy/Coleman Boundary in Pisgah National Forest.
With over 30 miles of hiking, biking or horse-riding trails, this whole area is beautiful, remote, mountain land. No other red foxes besides me on the trails since North Carolina’s only native fox is a gray fox which could be found in the forests, but I didn’t see any.
Honey Badger, Rock Sprite Kitty and friend on the trail.
The trails the group hiked this day lie in Buncombe County, one of 12 western North Carolina counties that contain at least a part of the 500 acre Pisgah National Forest, a hardwood forest with whitewater rivers, waterfalls and a storied history.
This national forest is home to the original tract of land to become a national forest in the eastern United States, being the first land purchased under the Weeks Act of 1911.
Then in 1914, Edith Vanderbilt sold approximately 86,700 acres of their estate’s forested mountain land, known as Pisgah Forest, to the federal government creating the Pisgah National Forest.
Why the name Pisgah? The name comes from the Bible, Deuteronomy 3:27: “Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and behold it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan.”
In Deuteronomy, the Lord ordered Moses to the top of Mount Pisgah to reveal the “Promised Land” to the tribes of Israel. From the top trails of Pisgah National Forest, as you look out over the picturesque views, you indeed feel as though you are being revealed a “Promised Land.”
Knox the Fox loves to share your trips so share yours with knoxthefox24@gmail.com.
